Federal safety standards for lawn mowers are now in the process of being implemented in the United States. One of the standards requires that all walk-behind power lawn mowers have a manually actuated control means requiring two distinct actions to restart a stopped cutting blade. The objective of this standard is to prevent inadvertent actuation of the cutting blade.
One of the objects of the present invention is to provide a novel manual control mechanism requiring two distinct actions in order to release the cutting blade for operation even after the mower engine has been energized. Included herein is the provision of such a control mechanism that is simple but durable in construction, effective in operation and yet may be economically manufactured and easily installed on new or existing power mowers. In addition, the control mechanism may be mounted to the existing handle bar structure of new or existing lawn mowers.
A further object of the present invention is the provision of such a control mechanism that may be easily handled during operation of the mower to maintain the mower cutting blade in operation and yet will automatically be moved to stop the cutting blade when the operator releases his hands from the handle bars of the mower.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a power lawn mower incorporating a novel control mechanism which will achieve the above objects.